


The Third Time

by CallMeHopeless (IAmNotBread)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Demon!Kylo, Demons, Dont sell your soul, F/M, Gentle Feelings, Hercules (1997) References, Kylo Ren is a good boi, Kylo protec, Reader is sad, Slow Burn, Soft Kylo, Souls, he attac, probably smut at some point
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 04:15:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16234016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmNotBread/pseuds/CallMeHopeless
Summary: Kylo Ren is feared. Despised. A demon, occasionally sent to claim souls for his master. He never hesitates - he never shows mercy. Until he does.





	The Third Time

**Author's Note:**

> I’m on a writing kick at the moment and this idea just sprang up in my mind. Been too long since I wrote a full-throttle angst fic, so fuck it. Loosely based upon Megara’s story in Hercules; very, very loosely. Don’t cry friends.

The first time; it’s raining.

Soft pattering on the window panes as Kylo stands in the threshold: dark eyes lingering on the canvases in the hallway. Birds, flitting in watercolour. Something more abstract - flowers, perhaps?

She’s been expecting him - or rather, she’s been expecting  _something_. Humans strike these deals with some vague hints at their significance, even if there’s no ‘bigger picture’. He’s never given details. Details create attachment, and attachment is  _not_ a fond thought.

“Have you come to take me away?”. She sighs; he watches the life spiral from her breath. He sees them all this way - sees the way humanity catches at the fringes of their periphery. Gravity. Their deeds trace their outlines like water: hatred, lust, greed. Always the same. You don’t sell your soul for less than that.

Love is the kicker, of course. The one he has the least practice with. There’s some redundancy in it; selling your soul for a crime of passion. He sees it in the ones who do it - and those test him most. Bring him closest to failure. 

Failure he cannot afford.

 _“One month”_. It’s a courtesy; the words dripping from his lips in deep echoes. “Summon me as often as you will until then”. They almost never do, of course; he reeks of malice, of wrongness. His beauty is all that remains of what he once was; noble features, dark hair. Supreme Leader took his soft, brown eyes; and now his stare holds crimson, blood.

But his new eyes see nothing of her hatred, her cruelty. She is undeniably human - and her greatest crime seems to be nothing short of petty lies, or drunken tomfoolery. Her soul aches with light and compassion; and he ought to look away. Her eyes look sore; lips parched. Like the cracked oil canvases on the walls.

When the darkness takes him back down to the depths; the colour of her soul lingers in his mind. Soft yellow: birdsong and oil.

Outside her window: the rain stops.

* * *

The second time; she’s crying.

They all cry. Kylo’s not sure of its purpose; but they all cry, in the end. Tears fall like rain, bringing with them stories. Every tear a novel, pages worn and read like leaves. He stands by the window - outside, he hears the traffic, smells the buzz of life.

“You summoned me”.

She sniffles, wiping her tears on the sleeve of her jumper. They stain life onto it, and he follows the tracks it makes. He feels a pang of sympathy; and that will not do. Demons do not feel sympathy for lesser things, any more than cats might for bacteria. A pointless venture.

“I was told you can do me favours” she whimpers. He hates this part; it only cements their deals further. Murder, revenge, sickness: these are things he cannot commit to. They try regardless - of course they try. Nothing to lose.

“Speak them”.

Her eyelids flutter shut, and he’s reminded of the spare lines in poetry. He once loved such things - and he bites at the thought. Purposeless. Futile.

“Look after him. Make sure he’s happy when I’m gone”.

It’s unprecedented. Insanity. His mind refuses to allow it - rejecting such a thing from fear of the unknown. They don’t beg this of him; they never ask him to watch over those that stole their souls to begin with. He knows that’s what she’s doing, even as she swallows deeply, love pressing at the corners of her spirit.

He says nothing, but seals it with a nod. If his lips part, he feels he might ache to comfort her; and that cannot be. Not even as the tears spill across the wooden flooring, dripping through the slats and soaking the floor at his feet. He shifts away, falling back into the darkness.

And for the first time - Kylo wishes that weren’t so.

* * *

The third time; candlelight throws shadows on the ceiling.

Flickering warmth pools at the shadows under her eyes, glinting on the mirror that hints nothing at his reflection. Her hair splayed against the white pillows, fingers dance at a bottle of wine, half-full. Crimson dances in the bottle, blood encased in ice.

“This is irregular”. Kylo’s voice is cold, dark. But somehow, he watches the colours swirl from his lips; charcoal, scarlet. Turquoise? He hardly recognises the shades that ache from his lungs, emotions running through his veins like liquid gold.

“What’s it like?”

He swallows.

“Did you summon me for-”

“-Death”. She huffs, pressing the bottle to her lips. Wine drips down her throat; he looks on, reduced to hovering in the doorway, white paint under his nails. “What does it feel like?”

He feels himself recoil, her question burning at his soul. His crimson eyes dart to her face, tipping his head as he watches her lick the wine from her lips. Something in his chest burns; igniting the void that a heart used to fill.

“Cold” Kylo says, chewing the corner of his lip. “Very cold”.

She huffs a breath, yellow in his periphery; sunlight and softness. Her free hand reaches out to him, fingers skirting at the air between them, ribbons of colour falling from her fingertips.

“Sit with me”, she breathes.

Everything turns; his body shuddering as he feels the tugging at his veins. For hundreds of years, he’s found them. Stolen them away in the night, taking them down to the depths and the dark. He doesn’t touch, doesn’t hold. Doesn’t linger.

Until he does.

 _It’s a favour_ , he tells himself. He moves like water; cloak billowing as his boots make no sound against the floorboards. Darkness reaching out to her, blurring her soft soul. She shifts over; sheets moving as she makes room for him. Little lilies are printed on the covers, making way as he pushes his heavy body down onto the blankets.

Wrongness leaks from his soul, tendrils of shadow in the space between them. But darkness doesn’t deter her; her eyes appraising him, the demon from the dark. A soulless thing: unloved, unknown. Shadow itself; crimson-eyed and dark haired.

Kylo Ren. Son of Darkness. Heir to the Empire.

Her hands brush at the billowing cloth of his cloak, curling at the material as though with subtle appreciation. It must feel cold to her, he notes. He exudes no heat; no light. No life.

“Were you alive...” she starts, licking her lip “...before?”

Before.

_Lush green pastures stretch out, endless fields below a starlit sky. Trees sport apples in the summer, juicy-red, crunchy and cool. Ben runs; he runs and runs, his heart thumping in his veins as he follows the moonlight through the fields. The grasses lick at his ankles, sandals scratching at his feet._

_“Ben!” his uncle calls out: his voice ringing through the night air. “Dinner’s almost ready!”  
_

_Ben hardly hears him, laughing loudly as he huffs a breath. He falls into the grass, letting the dandelions and primroses dotting the hedgerows dance on his fingertips. The night goes on forever; and he feels it in his bones. He’s got the world ahead of him, everything and more. The future feels brighter than it ever has; burning like the starlight at the edges of his vision._

_He coughs, plush lips parting to catch the wheeze in his hands. But his brow creases, appraising his palm for a moment. Something runs through his fingertips, and he shoots upright, frozen in shock._

_It’s blood. His blood._

_He’s dying._

Kylo blinks off the memory, assaulting him in a wave of pain. He feels his stomach turn; his vision blurring. A defense mechanism, he realises. To keep these thoughts at bay. Autonomy isn’t prized among his kind: thoughts of a life since lost too painful to hold. He shakes them off, letting them slip off like a second skin.

“Yes”.

She seems to take that in, drinking it like the wine on her breath. Her lashes flutter, teeth nipping at her lips. She looks so sad: tired and worn and terribly sad. Teal and turquoise and little flecks of navy; her soul flush with pain.

Life truly is less peaceful than death.

But he sucks at his teeth, for a moment. Sharpness on his tongue as he runs it across the molars at the back. Her wall is fixed with posters; women in dark robes, faces in crowds. Lovers, lips pressed together as their souls bleed into one another.

And then he jumps.

“Why would you want me to watch over him?” Kylo asks. And it’s stupid, it’s ridiculous - it’s mauve, violet, mahogany. Dripping with insanity; a question he’s never asked. It’s forbidden to ask - forbidden to search for meaning. 

But her soul - it’s beautiful. It stirs his heart, and forces him to wonder: to push against the boundaries of his understanding. In those nights in the dark, surrounded by the empty void - he sees that bright, gorgeous colour on the backs of his eyes.

She gives a sad smile, lips pausing at the corners to quiver upwards for a moment. He wishes he could take that sadness from her; and he supposes he'll get that wish. He'll take everything, in the end. He always does.

"You've never been in love, have you?" she asks, her eyes drifting to the dark waves of hair drifting down to his neck.

He doesn't even hesitate.

"No".

_Not yet._

And he panics; panics for the thought that moves through his mind like ice-water. Red, all red: the colour of his eyes, the colour of flames in the dark. Licking at his skin, white-hot in its intensity. Love is dangerous, frightful: pain and blood and bone. He doesn't want it, doesn't want to _think_ of it. Not even for the girl with yellow in her soul, starlight in her eyes - he doesn't want to think of why she dances in his vision. He fades into the shadows, letting them take him back to the wintry dark.

The pain is brutal, gripping at his veins as he falls to the stone floor. His dark hair falls across his shoulders as he dry heaves; gripping at his chest as it burns, pulsing with invisible force.

The third time; her hands reached for his cloak.

The third time; he remembered.

The third time; everything changed.

All at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there's the first part! I really hope you enjoy it - I'm really nervous about it! Not my usual writing style; something I've only tried a few times before.
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr! www.callmehopeless.tumblr.com


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